Dick Tracy **½ (1945, Morgan Conway, Mike Mazurki, Anne Jeffreys, Jane Greer) – Classic Movie Review 5593

Director William Berke’s 1945 crime thriller is an energetic, if cheap-looking low-budget cinema support feature adapted from Chester Gould’s cartoon. It kicks off a series of four movies from RKO Radio Pictures.

The only just adequate Morgan Conway stars as the police detective super-sleuth Dick Tracy, who pursues the maniacal murderer Splitface (Mike Mazurki), a crazy lunatic embarked on a campaign of gruesome deaths, in which the victims are viciously slashed to pieces. Tracy finds there will be 15 murders and must find what links the victims before they are all dead.

It is a good plot and there are plenty of interesting characters, , with well-cast actors playing them, so it is just a shame that Conway lacks charisma.

Anne Jeffreys plays Tracy’s gal Tess Trueheart and noir icon Jane Greer is Judith Owens. Also in the cast are Lyle Latell as Pat Patton, Joseph Crehan as Chief Brandon, Trevor Bardette as Professor Linwood J Starling, Mickey Kuhn as Junior, Morgan Wallace as Steve Owens, Milton Parsons as Deathridge the Undertaker, William Halligan as the Mayor, Edyth Elliot, Ralph Dunn and Edmund Glover.

It is also known as Dick Tracy, Detective and Splitface.

Eric Taylor’s screenplay is based on the comic strip by Chester Gould.

It is followed by Dick Tracy vs Cueball (1946), Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome (1947) and Dick Tracy’s Dilemma (1947). Ralph Byrd had previously starred as Dick Tracy in four cinema serials for Republic Studios and happily he returned to the role in movies with Dick Tracy Meets Gruesome.

The video market revived interest in the RKO movies after Dick Tracy was revived by Warren Beatty in 1990.

The perky blonde Anne Jeffreys died on 27 September 2017, aged 94. She also starred in Dick Tracy vs Cueball (1946), Dillinger (1945) and Return of the Bad Men (1948).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5593

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